A Harem Story
by Blue Quartz Foxy
Summary: In honor of SpammishRice's bday! Shikamaru wakes up one morning to find out that he's married to six women. Beware of plot holes, crack humor, Mary Sue bashing and more, much much more! Shika/Harem and Shika/Hina


A Harem Story

Notes: In honor of SpammishRice's 25 birthday- happy b-day Spammish!- and thanks to a conversation we had on Deviant Art about crack pairings, I decided to type up this strange little one-shot.

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Warning- this fan ficlet will be poking fun at a few 'popular'- and crack- Shika pairings.

Please look away, click back, or even close this window if your OTP is easily offended. This is just a joke people, crack if you will, it is not to be taken seriously.

If you still choose to read this, do so at your own risk because I will not accept flames- I'm all out of marshmallows for roasting so your flames will only go to waste-

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Disclaimer: I do not own rights to the anime/manga 'Naruto' so please don't sue me!

Warning: Cursing, OOC-ness, implied sexual content, and crack humor…lots and lots of crack…

Pairing: Shikamaru/harem- yep that's all you're getting. Shika/Hina towards the end.

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Low grumbles rose up from a mound of pillows as the being curled up in bed tried to cringe away from the morning sunlight streaming through a pane of window glass. Just on the other side of the bedroom door, a slender hand reached forward to twist the knob a little to the right before pushing the piece of solid wood forward. There was a slight 'creaking' sound as hinges protested at being moved, but the young man in bed remained fast asleep.

Long legs strutted across the room, barely making a sound as the slim form of a young blonde-haired woman moved over to the bed, shoes discarded to the side before the girl dared to crawl over the boy still sleeping in bed.

"Shikamaru…" the young woman's sultry sounding voice cooed as she started to tug on the covers, "Come on sleepy head, it's time to get up!"

A grunt was the young woman's only answer as Shikamaru rolled over to his side and jerked the bed covers out of her reach.

A blonde eyebrow twitched in annoyance, oh but she wasn't giving up easily. Not by a long shot.

For one moment, Shikamaru calmly slept on without interruption; but in the next second the young man yelled as his hair was ruthlessly pulled by an iron-strong grip. Jerking out of reach, feeling chunks of his hair being lost in the process, Shikamaru backed up against the headboard of his bed, panting as he glanced up at a blue-eyed blonde girl who had taken the liberty of draping herself all over him.

"Ino! What are you dong here? And… and you do realize that you're in my bed, right?" Shikamaru asked aloud, while at the same time trying to make himself as small as possible in order to protect himself, just in case Ino struck at him again.

But no punch or even more hair-pulling came his way; rather Shikamaru blinked wide brown eyes as Ino giggled at him.

"You're so silly when you first wake up Shi-ka-ma-ru," the girl teased as she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek with each purposeful pause.

However when Ino moved in to kiss him on the lips, Shikamaru quickly intercepted the action by raising his palms up to block the girl's mouth from his face.

Shikamaru instantly regretted his reaction though when Ino's blue eyes narrowed in anger. Yet, surprisingly enough, the moment passed without him getting hit or yelled at. Because Ino decided to take a slightly different route, instead of lashing out at her teammate, the young woman slowly blinked her eyes once then started licking the heart of Shikamaru's right palm.

"Cut that out already Ino, this isn't funny!" Shikamaru yelled as quickly pulled his hands back, wiping one on the bed sheets to get rid of the slick feeling of spittle against skin.

This time Ino looked more than angry, oh no she was beyond angry. The girl was pissed off.

"What do you mean cut it out? You would let Temari do that and more if I'm not mistaken! Never mind that you asked me to marry you first! Before you even knew that tart existed, I might add!" Ino bellowed.

Once again, Shikamaru found himself with his back against the wooden headboard of his bed, his normally clear, if sleepy, and intelligent brown eyes rapidly blinking in confusion.

"What? Ino I never asked you to marry…" he began, yet paused in mid sentence as Ino brought up her left hand showing off two golden rings. One piece of finger jewelry was a diamond engagement ring. The second being a simple circle of gold, a wedding band.

"Me?" Shikamaru asked more than said, his voice coming out in a choked and frightened squeak.

"Oh it's too late for that now." Ino snapped, arms crossed haughtily over purple crop top, "If you asked me that question now, knowing what I know about you I would have said 'no'."

The girl then sighed before grumbling under her breath, "I knew I should have waited for Sasuke instead…" Ino fumed as she untangled herself from Shikamaru's bed sheets, her feet all but stomping against the floor boards as the young woman marched over to the door.

As her right hand grasped the doorknob Ino spun around on her heel, her baby blues staring directly at Shikamaru, causing him to unconsciously flinch and glance around the room for some form of protection.

"Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes, so you'd better be dressed and have your ass in a chair at the table by then or there will be hell to pay." Ino threatened before she flung open the bedroom door, walked out, then proceeded to slam it behind her with such a force that a picture frame- one of a young Genin Team 10- shivered before falling face down on Shikamaru's dresser.

"What…the…hell...was that about?" Shikamaru asked himself, finding that he could finally breathe easy now that Ino wasn't hovering over him. However, while Shikamaru's lungs could stop screaming for air, his mind was crying out for someone or something to give him some kind of clue as to what was going on.

'I don't remember giving Ino a ring, let alone marrying her…' Shikamaru mused, his expression souring more with each passing second.

Not that Ino wasn't good looking, she was. And when he was younger Shikamaru toyed with the idea of them being a couple. Oh, but all it took was for Ino to open her big mouth to make Shikamaru quickly rethink his position on whether or not to ask his blonde-haired teammate out on a date.

'Besides last time I checked, Ino was trying to get Sai to notice her.' Shikamaru wondered to himself as he moved to get out of bed and looked around his room. After he got dressed, Shikamaru over turned the fallen picture frame, setting it back so that he was looking at the grinning faces of his younger self, Ino, Chouji, and Asuma-sensei.

Feeling a bit nostalgic all of a sudden, Shikamaru looked over at the other picture frames decorating the top of his dresser. There was a picture of him and his parents taken when he was about…three or four. Another one of him and Chouji when they were both in the ninja academy, both of them had goofy looking smile with a bag of BBQ chips split between them.

A dark eye brow quirked as Shikamaru took notice of other picture frames that he couldn't remember seeing before. Tilting one up toward the sunlight, Shikamaru's mouth first parted to form a small 'oh'.

It was a wedding photo of himself and Ino.

"Oh-kay, I guess we are married after all." Shikamaru said to himself, which in itself sounded strange.

Honestly, who would need to look at a photograph in order to 'remind' themselves that they are married to someone?

'Apparently I do.' Shikamaru thought bitterly as a snort escaped him. But then something Ino said earlier served to further puzzle the Nara.

'Ino said something about Temari though…' Shikamaru mused at first, but his thoughts were quickly interrupted as Ino's voice carried from the kitchen downstairs.

"Shikamaru! I'm not hearing any footsteps coming down that staircase. You have…fifteen seconds to get down here. One!"

Gripped with a sense of terror, Shikamaru quickly opened the door and was all but tripping over himself to get down the stairs as quickly as possible.

Skidding to a halt so that he didn't trip over the floor rug placed at the bottom of the stairs, Shikamaru breathed a sigh of relief since Ino's countdown had only reached 'five'.

Now that he was out of danger of facing Ino's wrath, Shikamaru calmly made his short trip to the kitchen at a more leisurely pace, hands shoved into the pants pockets. Crossing over the small arch that fed into the kitchen/dinning room from the living room, Shikamaru's eyes widened as he saw all the food spread out on the table.

Scrambled eggs, small grilled fish- mackerel even!-, rice, a towering pile of toast, along with an assortment of other breakfast foods.

'Well…' Shikamaru tilted his head a little to glance over at Ino, who was still cooking something on the stove with a light blue apron tied enticingly tight around her slender frame

'Maybe this isn't as bad as I thought it would be.' Shikamaru amended.

Sure Ino was bossy; but Shikamaru figured the equation of having a pretty wife, plus the fact that she could cook more food than he could even think of eating by himself, Shikamaru concluded that he should count himself a very lucky man if the only downside of this relationship was a little bit of yelling.

All but starving, Shikamaru sat down at the chair placed at the head of the table, a bit surprised with how many chairs there were lining either side of him. But after a moment of thought, Shikamaru found himself too distracted by the pleasing aroma of breakfast and started to dig into the various dishes, particularly snatching up a lot of the mackerel.

Ino walked in, placing down a large cooking pot at the last available spot on the center line of the table. Blowing a stray strand of blonde hair away from tickling the bridge of her nose, the young woman gave Shikamaru a small smooth smile as she saw her husband had a healthy appetite this morning.

"Well at least you're downstairs on time…for once. The food was about to get cold."

"Sorry…" Shikamaru said around a mouthful of mackerel before reaching over to pluck yet another fish from the plate, only to have Ino reach over an lightly smack his hand away from the grilled fish.

"Easy big boy. Save some food for the rest of us." Ino lightly chided as she moved pulled out a chair to sit down directly across Shikamaru.

As he chewed on a mixture of mackerel and scrambled eggs, Shikamaru turned to one of preoccupied contemplation. Once he swallowed the young man asked aloud, "The rest of us?"

"Yes," Ino said with a nod as she unfolded a napkin to place in her lap, "Me and the girls have to eat too you know."

Shikamaru made the mistake of popping another fork full of food into his mouth since he nearly ended up choking, caught completely off guard by Ino's remark.

Now while Shikamaru was well aware that Ino had a bit of an inflated ego. Shikamaru also knew that Ino's sense of self had not gotten to the point where she referred to herself in the plural sense…or at least he hoped that it hadn't gotten that far.

But after a moment of thought, Shikamaru realized what else she could have meant.

"Daughters?" Shikamaru asked innocently enough.

Ino's blue eyes went wide before a loud laugh erupted from her lips, "Kids? Hardly," she replied.

"But if we don't have any kids…then who are these 'girls' you're talking about?" Shikamaru found himself asking, yet his wonderment ceased when the sound of loud footfalls followed by even louder voices.

"Fuck! Now my hair is all tangled! Do you have any idea what a bitch it is to pull out tangles!" one female voiced exclaimed cursing with each step.

"Oh just shut up already. You could have had first dibs on the shower if you'd bother to get your ass out of bed…" another female voice drawled.

There was a scuffling sound as if the first two were ready to start a fight, until a third voice piped up, "Whoa, ladies, ladies settle down. We don't need you two breaking all of Ino's dishes like you did last week…" the third voice attempted to reason, yet she was interrupted as someone slammed a door upstairs.

Hearing the impending argument and the intervention of the unnamed peacemaker, Ino snorted snorted again.

"Damn straight they'd better not touch my china again. Kin still owes me for the plates I had to replace…what? Shikamaru, what's the matter?" the blonde asked when she looked up to see the horrified expression and pasty pale complexion on Shikamaru's face.

With his fork caught between air and plate, Shikamaru could see his right hand start to shake, "K-Kin! But…she's dead!"

Ino blinked before giving an eloquent response, "Huh? Shikamaru what are you talking about?" she asked.

"Kin. Sound kunoichi. Used bells, strings, and some weird sound jutsu on me in our first Chunnin exam. The reports said that she died some time during Orochimaru's attack against our village. Is any of this familiar to you?!" Shikamaru said about to reach over the table to shake Ino's shoulders in an effort to get the girl to recall the past.

Ino wrinkled her nose, "Oh that…" she said before spearing a bit of fish with her fork, "I honestly don't know what you see in her anyway." Ino began, "She's a real bitch, oh but no you just had to propose to her AFTER she nearly beat you to a pulp in your match."

"What?" Shikamaru asked.

"Hn, you tell me 'what'." Ino snipped back in response, "From what everyone told me: you saved her from Orochimaru. After that Kin felt so indebted to you she accepted your proposal despite the fact she hated your guts…"

"What…" Shikamaru repeated with the same amount of bemusement, but with some disbelief added into the mix. He didn't remember 'saving' Kin from anything, hell he didn't even see the girl around Konoha after their brief match.

"Oh and there's Tayuya too. Temari threw a fit when you brought her home!" Ino said with grin that was half saucy half sadistic.

"What…I didn't…wait she's dead too!" Shikamaru exclaimed.

"God, would you pipe down already and let me finish!" Ino snapped banishing a fork right above Shikamaru's nose, coming dangerously close to his eyeballs.

Swallowing a hard lump down his throat, terrified, Shikamaru briskly nodded but was careful not to get too closely acquainted with the pronged eating utensil, "Yes…" _gulp_ "Ma'am."

Pulling back to sit down properly in her chair, Ino took her time with continuing her story, pausing to take in a bit of food and dabbing the corner of her lip with a napkin before she elaborated on the increasingly crazy tale.

"Well Temari did beat the crap out of Tayuya with her weasel summon; but you stayed behind to dig Red out from underneath all those fallen trees. Amazingly enough, Tayuya held on long enough for Tsunade to heal her back from the brink of death."

"No…she was dead. Ino, there was no way anyone could survive having their body being crushed by thirty trees." Shikamaru said, attempting to reason with his blonde-haired…wife?

Right now Shikamaru wasn't sure exactly just who he was 'married' to.

"Yeah, it is pretty freaky." Ino admitted, "In fact Tsunade-sama was surprised that Tayuya's body wasn't crushed into itty bitty pieces; but she said it was probably that freaky curse seal Orochimaru had on her that spared her life."

Stunned into silence, Shikamaru could only watch as Ino took a sip of her orange juice, "Anyway, everyone said that Tayuya should stay under the…'care' of the ANBU Torture squad. Until she told us the exact location of Orochimaru's hiding place so that we could get Sasuke back. But you…" she stopped to point at Shikamaru.

"Managed to talk the Hokage, Ibiki, and a bunch of ANBU members to let you into Red's room to talk to her. At first I thought the medics would be called in later that afternoon to cart off your bloody corpse out of that room.

Ino paused again as someone started banging on a door.

"Come on, hurry up! I need to finish washing my hair! I can feel my hair starting to frizz!"

"Shut your whining pot-hole!" came the responding shout.

Ino sighed and looked to Shikamaru, "Great, how much you want to bet we'll have to replace the door to the upstairs bathroom?" she asked.

Shikamaru just stared at her, still stunned and strangely quiet, but even without saying a word the young Nara's distress was clear by the odd twitches that flittered across his face.

Taking little notice of Shikamaru's erratic facial flinches, Ino shrugged and went on.

"Now, I don't know how you managed it, but you got Tayuya to talk, without torturing her I might add. You also made swear allegiance to Konoha…oh and to agree to marry you too."

"No I didn't!" Shikamaru finally said, bringing a hand down on the table, "Ino, do I look like a guy who proposes marriage to every woman I meet?!" he asked.

Ino gave him a thoughtful frown, "Well no. You don't _look_ like the suave, heroic and romantic type; but how else do you explain all of the women living in this house, hmm?" the blonde asked in a sarcastic tone.

"I don't know…I…wait how many people live in this house anyway?"

Ino shrugged, "I honestly don't know. Last count I had there's, you and me of course so that's two," the young woman began as she counted off on her fingers.

"Kin and Tayuya. Every six months Temari comes and stays when the Chuunin exam rolls around, which starts today so most likely she'll pop up sometime around noon."

Holding up five fingers Ino, much to Shikamaru's surprised chagrin, started on her other hand, "Then there's that Mary Sue chick you picked up from…somewhere last month."

Shikamaru's expression quickly went from spaz attack to dead pan, "Mary…" he started.

"Mary Sue…yes. Okay so that makes six…" Ino said, yet paused her bottom lip pursed in thought, meanwhile above the bathroom door slammed again.

"About damn time!" one female voice snipped while another sneered.

"Yeah yeah, the shower is all yours now _Princess_…"

"What did you just call me?!"

Though the ruckus upstairs went on, Ino seemed oblivious to it all, lost in thought as she tried to keep count of the residents.

"I know there is someone that I'm forgetting, but I can't remember…" Ino muttered to herself while Shikamaru was becoming increasingly distracted by a sudden foreboding feeling that crept along his neck and shoulders.

The foreboding feeling was quickly replaced by out right terror as a warm puff of air brushed along the fine hairs along the back of his neck.

"Gah!" Shikamaru yelped, leaping forward, his body colliding with the edge of the table while a hand flew back to his neck.

"Oh good morning Anko-chan," Ino said casually even as Shikamaru tried to scramble away from the embrace, the former exam proctor currently had him wrapped in.

"Morning!" the older woman chirped in response before she leaned in to playfully nip at Shikamaru's right ear, or rather nibble on his earring rather than the ear.

"Stop that!" Shikamaru said as he attempted to push Anko out of his personal space, but the woman only teased him more by tugging on the earring with her teeth.

After a few shoves, Anko finally released her hold on both Shikamaru's ear and his waist then sat down to the right of the young man, causing Shikamaru to scoot a little more to the left.

"Wow…" Anko said her dark purple eyes drinking in the vast spread of food laid out on the table, readily digging in and taking a bite.

"Oh this is soooo good Ino-chan." Anko moaned as she scooped up a second helping, yet paused long enough in her fest to wiggle her eyebrows at the blond.

"I take it that a home cooked breakfast means someone had a very, very…" she stopped to tear off a piece of mackerel with her teeth, "_very_ good night last night, eh?" Anko finished with a wink at Shikamaru.

In response, Shikamaru sunk down into his chair as he made an earnest attempt to melt into the floor…or at least find a way to vanish in thin air.

'I'm…married to five…no six women!' Shikamaru thought to himself, the shock of this revelation just now taking root.

"Actually," Ino said with a sigh, "That guy," she pointed to Shikamaru, " was a bit disappointing last night."

Anko's eyes widened, "Oh really…did Hubby sack out before he let you finish?"

"Um hello…I'm right here and I can hear you." Shikamaru said drolly as he looked balefully down at his unfinished breakfast, only to push it away, finding that he couldn't eat another bite.

Apparently, the discovery that he was married to six women was giving Shikamaru a stomach ulcer, as opposed to helping to improve his appetite.

But Ino and Anko ignored his comment, plunging headlong into the topic of sex, or rather the lack there of.

"He's done that to you too?" Ino asked, "Ugh it's so annoying! Sure I'll come a couple of times, but after a third, he's a goner."

Anko nodded, "Oh yeah, but you can't really blame him, Ino-chan, he's still a young man. Don't get me wrong, he's very creative, not to mention has a very flexible body…oh and the things he can do with his tongue," Anko said singing Shikamaru's praises.

But rather than feeling flattered by the older woman mentioning his 'supposed' sexual prowess, Shikamaru felt like dying on the spot.

'I don't even remember kissing any of these girls, let alone having sex with Ino, Anko or any of them for that matter!' Shikamaru thought, on the verge of losing his ever loving mind.

However Anko wasn't quite through with her X-rated rant, "Now, what you need to do, is let him nap in between rounds one and three for about oh ten to thirty minutes, afterward he'll be ready the next few time."

"Oh, you know I never would have thought of that before. Thanks Anko," Ino said with a smile.

"Again, I'm right here. I have ears and I'm still trying to eat! Or at least I was…" Shikamaru said as he looked back to his breakfast plate, but looked away when he started to feel sick again.

And nausea was just the beginning because a moment later two footsteps came down the stairs, but Shikamaru actually heard the vaguely familiar- if postmortem- voices long before feet touched the bottom landing.

"Ow…ow…ouch! Ack, these tangles still won't go away!" Kin whined as she turned the corner, sauntering into the dinning room with a brush in hand, attempting to tame her long jet black hair.

"Well that's what you get for sleeping in…_Princess_." Tayuya taunted, causing Kin to clench her hair brush tightly in her fist.

"Hey, hey hey!' Anko said before thrusting her arms over the length of the table to keep the feuding girls separated, "Why can't we just sit down and enjoy breakfast okay?" the older woman said with a sheepish smile.

A long stretch of silence with both girls glaring hotly at each other before both gave a loud 'humph' , turning their heads as Kin and Tayuya sat down at the table.

Ino gave a sigh of relief, "Thank you," she said to Anko.

"Hey don't mention it," Anko said with a grin, reaching over to grab a rice ball the woman suddenly stopped when she caught Shikamaru's shocked expression.

"Oi, Hubby, are you okay over there?" Anko asked reaching for a fork to lightly prod Shikamaru in the arm.

Feeling the sudden 'poke' Shikamaru abruptly jerked backward into his chair, nearly forcing the piece of furniture to over turn and plop himself down on the floor.

"Whoa, easy there, Slick." Anko said, "What's got you so tense this morning?"

Kin sneered, "I bet I know, the sand witch is coming back today. He and Temari always play it a bit…rough when she comes by."

Tayuya moodily crossed arms over her chest, "Damn foreigner, she always takes up Shikamaru's time when she's around."

Anko sighed heavily, "Well ducklings that's just the way things are. Even though Temari is technically a wife too, she can't stay in the house like we can, so we let her have her week of fun."

Anko paused long enough to lick the prongs of her fork suggestively all the while staring at a freaked out Shikamaru, "But once she's gone…he's ours again."

"Hold on," Shikamaru began, yet he regretted speaking up when four pairs of eyes turned on him in an instant.

Clearing his throat Shikamaru tried to get his point across as quickly as possible, "I am not a piece of meat for you guys to fight over, so quit talking about me like I'm not here…" he finished with a small grunt, honestly unsure if his words were going to help him or damn him.

All four girls looked at each other with puzzled expressions, then three sets of eyes turned on Ino.

"Geez Ino, " Kin began, "we keep telling you not to be so rough with him when you guys do it!"

"Yeah it sounds like he's got amnesia or some other crap like that." Tayuya said.

A blonde eyebrow twitched in annoyance, "I wasn't rough with him. Oh and speaking of rough weren't you the one to first 'break' Shikamaru?"

"It was a finger alright! A fucking finger! It's not my fault he's such a passive bitch," the red-haired one muttered.

"Hey!" Shikamaru protested, this conversation was getting worse by the second.

Kin giggled behind a hand, "My my Tayuya, I don't think you called Shikamaru a 'bitch' the last time he had you underneath."

"Oh shut up you pathetic harpy!"

"Oh boy, here we go again." Ino said with a sigh as she moved to 'rescue' her china plates by placing them underneath the table.

"Maybe I should use some explosive tags to break them apart." Anko mused aloud.

"Yeah, right, you do that Anko. And while you're at it why don't you demolish over half our home!" Ino snipped.

"Hmm that actually sounds like fun!"

"Don't you dare…!" Ino shouted.

Because there was a fight brewing on either side of the table, Shikamaru decided that now would be the best time to make a quick getaway. Slowly, so as not to draw attention to himself, Shikamaru eased himself out of the chair. Next, he carefully scooted behind Ino's chair, tip-toed out of the dinning room, then made a bee-line for the living room.

He only stopped long enough to pull on a pair of sandals, not exactly caring if it was his own pair or one that belonged to the 'girls', at that moment Shikamaru was more concerned with escaping than he was with whether or not he was wearing the proper footwear.

'These women are crazy!' Shikamaru thought as he forced a foot into a pair of sandals that were a smidgen too tight.

Now that he had footwear- albeit very uncomfortable footwear- on, Shikamaru opened to door, first looking behind him as he heard some screaming and something hit a wall, followed by the sound of something shattering.

Shaking his head in dismay, Shikamaru walked out to the front porch and moved quickly to get away from the mad house.

'There is no way on earth I'm married or involved somehow with all of them at once. At least two of them are 'dead', one is a psycho instructor I've only met once, another lives in Suna most of the time, and the last one…"

"Oomph!" Shikamaru grunted as he suddenly collided with something that was very soft yet at the same time very solid.

Eyes wide open, Shikamaru blinked as he found himself 'trapped' between two very large…breasts?

Above him, Shikamaru heard a girl squeal, "Shika, my love!' she said before embracing him into a tight bone crunching hug.

"Gah! Let me go…I can't…ack can't breathe!" he panted.

"Oh oopsie!" the girl giggled, "Sorry about that love, sometimes I don't know my own strength sometimes tee hehe!"

'God this girl is annoying.' Shikamaru thought.

After being released Shikamaru moved his gaze to look at the girl, only to blink several times, only to bow his head and sigh.

"You have got to be kidding me..." he muttered.

"Pardon?" the girl said, leaning forward so that her bountiful cleavage almost spilled out of her very low cut and skimpy blouse. Below the breasts was an impossibly small cinched waistline, well-rounded hips and long skinny legs that went on for miles. Above the breasts, there was a pretty smiling face, long blonde hair that trailed on for at least six feet behind the girl.

The whole picture was topped off by impossibly large red Uchiha eyes. Or at least they looked like the red bloodline eyes of an Uchiha, but the color kept changing in the direct sunlight so Shikamaru wasn't quite sure just what color her eyes were.

"No wait…don't tell me," Shikamaru said grimly, "Let me guess, you're Mary Sue…right?"

"Yep!" the girl said cheerfully, "I'm so very sorry that I wasn't able to greet you this morning when you woke up honey-bunch, but I just finished up my training exercises with Gai-sensei and Lee-kun."

"But," she beamed widely, teeth so perfect, white, and bright, that it made Shikamaru cringe, "I've got good news! I bet both of them easily by over twelve miles, while carrying twenty pounds of rice on my head while doing cartwheels around the village!"

"Oh really…" Shikamaru said dryly, obviously not buying any of it.

"Yes. But of course what else could one expect from a woman like myself, since I'm half Uchiha and half Hyuuga, and I'm also the vessel of Legendary Ten Tailed Peacock Demon."

"You…you don't say…" Shikamaru began as he tried to keep from laughing, but it was becoming difficult to be keep a straight face.

'I actually picked up this girl and married her too?' he wondered, 'I must have been drunk…or insane…no insane and drunk.'

However, whether he lacked sanity or not was a moot point, because the door to the house opened and Anko stepped out.

"Oi! There you are Shikamaru!"

Suddenly Ino, Tayuya, and Kin peered around Anko. Each girl had a devious and dangerous look on their face.

For her part Anko drew out a kunai from seemingly no where, skimmed her tongue across the surface, "Girls, I think Hubby's trying to escape from us…again."

"Oh? Now really Anko," Ino began, "He wouldn't be stupid enough to try to get away from us."

"Right," Tayuya agreed, "I'm sure that he remembered the last time he ran away like a fucking coward."

Shikamaru gulped, he didn't like the look of this anymore than he enjoyed watching the four girls fight at the breakfast table.

Slowly, the shadow nin took two steps backward, only to freeze in place. Terrified and unable to move his body save for his eyes, Shikamaru glanced over to see that Mary Sue had him trapped in a shadow bind.

"Oh Shika my dear," the odd girl cooed, "This technique you showed me is very useful. I honestly don't know what we gals did before you taught it to me."

Shikamaru's gaze widened as he looked right into Mary Sue's eyes, one was blood red in the shape of a pinwheel, while the other was a blank space of white save for the faint traces of a pupil as veins stretched across her face.

Literally frozen in place, Shikamaru had no idea what to do.

Akatsuki nin he could handle no problem, but five women, one of which was a freaky combination of all things shinobi rolled into one package...against only himself, with no back up or a plan of action?

Now that was a doomed battle even Shikamaru's razor sharp mind couldn't find a way out of.

Suddenly there was a large gust of wind ripped through the courtyard.

"Ah! My hair!" Kin whined as she tried to keep her long hair from whipping about in the wind.

"My flowers!" Ino yelled as her beautiful garden was sliced apart by the wind.

"Oh no my jutsu!" Mary Sue cried as she lost control over Shikamaru's shadow.

Freed, Shikamaru took to make a run for it, only to collide into something, or rather someone, yet again.

"Well, well, well crybaby. It's good to see you again too, though I really wasn't expecting this kind of welcome from you." Temari purred as she leaned forward to gently lift Shikamaru's chin to look up at her.

"Stop…stop it all of you!" Shikamaru yelled.

Six pairs of eyes were now on him, but Shikamaru didn't pause long enough to think about that rather he blurted out.

"I'm not married to any of you!"

"You and you," he pointed to Kin and Tayuya, "are dead. Flat line, taking the big sleep, pushing up daises, whatever! The point is you two are not alive!"

Kin and Tayuya stared at each other.

"I don't _feel_ dead, do you?" Kin asked Tayuya to which the red-head only shook her head.

"And you," he pointed to Anko, "I've only seen you once in my lifetime. If anything you should be married to Naruto, he's the one you licked blood off of ,you psychotic freak."

"Psychotic freak…hey I kind of like that new pet name, thank you!" Anko yelled.

But, Shikamaru ignored her, instead he turned to Mary Sue, "And I don't even think you're human."

Mary Sue pouted, puffing out her chest to an even more ridiculous proportion, "I'll have you know I'm very much human, so much so…that I'm hurt by your words." she started to sniffle.

"I…I hate you Shika! You're a horrible husband…so I'm just going to… to kill myself, since I'm obviously so unwanted!" Mary Sue cried as she took Anko's kunai from her and moved to impale it into her chest, but stopped just short of actually doing the deed.

Every eye was looking expectantly at Mary Sue, but she didn't make any stabbing motions.

"Um…this is the part where someone tries to, oh I don't know, STOP ME!"

Shikamaru looked to the other girls and shrugged, "Don't look at me. I don't even like her."

"What?" Mary Sue gasped, throwing the weapon to the ground.

"Damnit!" Anko said snapping her fingers, "She almost did it too!"

"I…I can't believe you?!" Mary Sue blubbered looking at Shikamaru pleadingly, "A-after all we've meant to each other?"

Shikamaru didn't even blink before replying with, " Woman, I don't even know who you are. Or rather what you are."

With a look of utter dejection Mary Sue's lower lip quivered before she turned away and stormed out of the garden, crying her eyes out while yelling, "Fine! I get it, you don't want me! I see how it is! I'll just go back to the Akatsuki where I'm loved!"

"Yeah, good luck with that." Shikamaru said in sarcastic tone of voice, yet flinched as he realized that he still had Ino and Temari to deal with.

Both women looked at Shikamaru expectantly.

"Okay, I have to admit…you," he pointed to Ino, "and you," to Temari, "Maybe I could be married to either one of you. It's possible, just not both of you at the same time."

At that point Shikamaru held up one finger, "One wife, okay? Not six wives. Not three wives. Or even two wives. One wife."

Silence over took the courtyard.

"So…" Kin started, "what you're saying is that only one of us gets to be married to you?"

"Yes," Shikamaru said bluntly, only to remember that technically Kin- and Tayuya- couldn't qualify because they were dead.

Ino looked a bit nervous now, "But, how are you going to decide on which one of us you're going to keep?" the blonde asked.

Shikamaru opened his mouth at first to speak, only to reconsider and shut it.

'She's got a point there. If I just pick one of them…and by them I mean either Ino or Temari. Anyway if I choose one, the other is going to make my life a living hell.' Shikamaru considered.

Anko's eyes suddenly lit up, "I've got an idea!"

Temari grumbled under her breath, "Really? Well don't strain yourself too much."

Anko silently glowered at the Sand woman's response but trudged headlong into her idea.

"We should hold a contest, or rather a race in order to win Shikamaru."

"Hey wait a second that isn't what I had in mind…" Shikamaru started to say, but was interrupted by Tayuya.

"Fuckin great idea!"

"Yes," Kin agreed, "A contest it will be then."

Ino and Temari glanced at each other. At first Ino felt unsure about this whole 'contest' thing since she felt there was no need to run a race when Shikamaru first proposed to her to be his wife when they were just Genin.

"I'm the first wife," Ino said as she reached over to grab Shikamaru's arm, "So I should be the one who stays married to him!"

"Oh ho, but you forget pork-dumpling," Anko crowed over Ino,"Shikamaru proposed to me less than a day after you, plus our ceremony was before yours and his. Which makes me the 'first wife' so I have a chance too," the exam proctor said as she took Shikamaru's other arm.

"And you both are forgetting that Shikamaru," Temari began as she stood in front of the trapped young man, "slept with me first."

"W-what?!" Shikamaru sputtered, "When the hell was that?"

However his question went unanswered because next Kin and Tayuya put their two cents in. Before long all five women were trying to out do each other in sheer volume, all of their voices shrilly entered Shikamaru's ears, all of them were screaming and spouting spit in his face.

"Alright!" Shikamaru finally screamed as he wrenched himself away out of reach of all the women.

Panting from the extrusion Shikamaru finally relented, "We'll do it your way Anko."

Anko beamed from ear to ear, "I'm going leave you all in the dust."

Kin and Tayuya tossed each other conspiring looks.

"Hey, what do you say we…" Tayuya whispered in Kin's ear, who nodded in agreement.

"Sure, after all us_ dead_ girls have to stick together, right?"

"Damn straight." Tayuya said, arms crossed stubbornly over her chest.

Defeated yet again, Shikamaru sighed, "Sure why not. Race with Anko, Ino, and Temari. I don't care anymore, I just want to get this over with."

"Yes!" Kin and Tayuya said ready to give each other high fives in congratulations only to stop short of making skin contact, because they were no longer the 'dead' girls against the 'living', now they were against themselves as well as the other three.

"Okay," Shikamaru said with a sigh as he wished this weird-ass day would just end already, "how do you guys want to go about the..." he stopped to look at the girls, who stared back at him with predatory grins.

"Oh we're not racing against you to see who can outrun you if that's what you mean." Temari began.

Ino had a wicked grin on her lips, "Rather, we're out to chase you and hunt you down just like…"

"A hunter chases down…" Tayuya spoke up.

"A deer." Kin supplied with a small giggle.

Anko smirked at a stunned and scared looking Shikamaru, "So if I were you, little shika, I suggest that you…" she leaned in close to whisper in Shikamaru's ear, " had better start running... right about…Now!"

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"Ahhh! No, stop it! Just leave me alone!" Shikamaru screamed, as he bolted up right in bed.

Instead of seeing evil grinning female faces and predatory eyes directed at him, Shikamaru found his line of sight was greeted by blissful darkness.

'A dream…no a nightmare, but at least it wasn't real.' Shikamaru thought to himself, giddy with relief but still trying to calm down his racing heartbeat.

Beside him a female body stirred, pulling bed sheets that were formally tucked in securely up around her naked chest.

"Shikamaru?" a voice questioned.

Attempting to shake his head free of the nightmare, Shikamaru didn't make any attempts to answer his bed companion.

Concerned when he didn't speak up after screaming and jerking awake all of a sudden, the girl reached over to the night stand and turned on a small desk lamp.

Orange-golden light flooded one corner of the room. Pale lavender eyes blinked at the sudden intrusion of light. A small gasp escaped Hinata as she saw Shikamaru's shoulders bunch up then shiver several times.

Daring to gently bring a hand up against his right shoulder, Hinata suddenly flinched when Shikamaru turned his head to look at her.

She blinked, noticing how wide and scared his dark eyes looked.

'Oh no…it must have been one of those bad nightmares again…' Hinata thought to herself. It wasn't often, but sometimes Shikamaru had terrible dreams about the long-since disbanded Akatsuki- namely the foul-mouthed priest he had buried years ago.

While she couldn't erase the memory or the nightmares that came with it, at least Hinata knew what to do in terms of comfort.

Without a word or a warning given, Hinata reached over and gently enveloped Shikamaru into her arms. Surprised, Shikamaru allowed himself to be captured, grateful that it was his gentle wife- his one and only wife- who was holding him 'captive' rather than being in the clutches of someone like Kin, Tayuya, Anko…or Mary Sue.

Shikamaru shuddered again at the mere thought of those monstrous women. Hinata felt the shiver as it rippled down Shikamaru's shoulders and back.

"It's okay, love." Hinata said softly, "It was just a dream."

Shikamaru nodded in response, finally allowing his body to relax into Hinata's embrace, his breathing becoming even and steady as did his heart beat mellow out into it's normal pace.

"Yeah you're right. Just a dream…" he replied, kissing the top of Hinata's head.

The couple held onto each other for a few more minutes, until Shikamaru mumbled about wanting to go back to sleep before he had to get up early tomorrow morning for a mission with his team.

Nodding in agreement, Hinata reached over and flicked off the light. Shikamaru kissed his wife gently on the lips as they both settled back into bed.

"Goodnight…" Hinata said softly, her fingertips gently touching across Shikamaru's right hand.

Shikamaru yawned once, "G'night…" he muttered, already close to dozing off back into slumber land.

But before he successfully fell back asleep, Shikamaru muttered aloud, "Hinata?"

"Hn?" the young woman hummed contently and close to sleep herself.

"I'm glad you're the only woman I'm married to." Shikamaru said assured that he indeed only belonged to one, and only one, person he could sleep peacefully.

"Uh-huh…that's nice, dear." Hinata agreed sleepily.

But no more than five minutes after the lights went out, Hinata's pale eyes suddenly opened and blinked into the darkness as she thought on Shikamaru's words.

'He's tired. He didn't mean anything by it…' Hinata attempted to assure herself.

But Hinata didn't take comfort in her self-assertion. She never knew Shikamaru to say something that he didn't mean, even when he was died tired.

Those words turned, churned, rolled, and tossed themselves around inside Hinata's mind, until she couldn't take it anymore.

Sitting up in bed, Hinata flicked on the bedside lamp again and looked over to her husband.

"Shikamaru?" she whispered, lightly prodding the young man in the side.

Her response was a low grunt, otherwise Shikamaru slept on.

Still, Hinata tired again, this time shaking his shoulders, "What did you mean by that? Who else would you be married to?"

Another groan, still a far cry from any answer Hinata had been hoping for.

In a near state of panic, Hinata reached over a gave a light tug to Shikamaru's hair still attempting to rouse him awake.

"Shikamaru?" Hinata questioned.

Meanwhile her husband snored on, sound asleep and without a care in the world.

Frowning to herself, Hinata released her grip on Shikamaru's dark and unbound hair. Sinking into the bedcovers, Hinata didn't even attempt to sleep so she left the light on.

While it was Shikamaru who suffered from a nightmare, but of a different sort than pervious ones, it was actually Hinata who lied wide awake that evening.

'Shikamaru, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do come morning.' Hinata said to herself as she gave her husband a very miffed stare.

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Notes: -cringes- Sorry if this turned out bad SpammishRice, honestly I did try hard! I had to cut out a lot of things that I wanted to add, but couldn't otherwise I would have started yet 'another' multi-chaptered fan fic, so hopefully this one-shot counts as an acceptable b-day present…I hope ;

Thanks for reading everyone, and remember reviews equal love! Later!


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